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He rolls us over once more, bracing himself above me as his lips find my skin, pressing warm kisses to my neck and chest.
And when he slides inside me again, for a little while, I don’t.
Chapter 16
After Marcus brings me to orgasm twice before coming inside me again, we both doze, exhausted and spent.
I wake up as the light outside is changing from a rosy glow to the hazy blue of post-sunset.
Shit. I have to work tonight.
My body feels both sated and sore, and I’m sprawled out on my back on the large bed with Marcus’s heavy arm draped over my stomach. I gaze down at his hand, at the numbers imprinted onto his skin, and a strange feeling washes over me.
That date will always be irrevocably embedded in my memory.
My entire life changed that night.
But somehow, I think Marcus’s did too.
I brush my fingers over the scars on my chest, then down my ruined arm. There are a few near my elbow that I can’t see because of the tattoos, but I know exactly where they are.
Was any part of that night fate?
Or was it all just random luck?
Turning my head to look at Marcus, I take in his sleeping form. The lines of his face are just as hard and intense in sleep as they are when he’s awake, but something around his mouth and eyes seems to have relaxed a bit. His long lashes brush his cheeks, and he looks almost boyish like this. At peace.
“You’re right. It wasn’t an accident,” I whisper, my voice hardly more than a breath.
I’ve never said that out loud. Not even to myself. I’ve spent two and a half years insisting the opposite was true, telling myself maybe I never really saw the gun before it fired—maybe I didn’t know the danger I was stepping into.
But I did know.
I saw the gun, and I knew what was coming.
Maybe I’ll never fully understand why I did it, but that doesn’t change the fact that in that moment, I made a choice.
I chose to save Marcus Constantine’s life. To exchange mine for his.
Except I lived too, against all odds.
Marcus stirs a little in his sleep, grunting softly. He’s still dead to the world, and I’m sure he didn’t hear me speak.
Good. He wasn’t meant to.
It’s a vulnerable thing, to fall asleep with someone. I can’t believe I did it with him, but I also can’t quite believe he’s done it with me. For as much as this man wants access to every part of my life, he seems just as adamant about keeping parts of his own on lockdown. I know there are secrets he’s keeping from me, and I wonder if I should’ve pushed harder to uncover them.
For a long time, I intentionally avoided asking him personal questions or trying to learn more about his life. I didn’t want to strengthen whatever strange connection seemed to exist between us, to make it any more real than it already felt.
But I think it’s a little too fucking late for that now.
With that thought at the forefront of my mind, I carefully slide out from under his arm, moving slowly to be sure I don’t wake him. I pad across the room to collec
t my clothes, getting dressed quickly.
I was a sticky mess when I fell asleep, but there’s no cum drying on my inner thighs, which makes me think Marcus must’ve cleaned me up again before he passed out. I don’t know quite how to feel about that, so I choose not to fixate on it, slipping the door open quietly and stepping out into the hall.
I leave my jacket, my single shoe, and my prosthesis in the bedroom, and when I pass my other shoe in the hall, I leave that one too. I’ll come back for them later. I still have a few hours before I need to be at Duke’s, and I have a very strong feeling I know what Marcus’s reaction will be if I try to take the bus home before work.
